


Sleeping In, Sleeping In The Sun

by SublimeDiscordance



Series: On Life's Weary Seas [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Ghost Drifting, Gift Fic, M/M, Multi, No Sex, Past Raleigh Becket/Yancy Becket, Sleeping Together, Weird Ghost Drifting Shit, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1247599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SublimeDiscordance/pseuds/SublimeDiscordance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all endings are happy, but, sometimes... Sometimes you just get it right. Raleigh likes to think he's got it right this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping In, Sleeping In The Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Airwing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airwing/gifts).



> Wrote this spontaneously because someone (you know who you are) decided they wanted a happy epilogue to Waiting For The Sunrise... Well, you got your wish. ^_^ Plus... Waiting was supposed to be way fluffier, so I feel like this makes up for it? Maybe? I dunno. I'm shit at writing fluff, so I'm sorry if it ends up horrible. It's also shorter than, well, anything I've ever posted, so sorry for that as well.
> 
> No beta, so all mistakes/eccentricities are my own. (Speaking of, if you see anything feel free to let me know in the comments)
> 
> Title comes from "On The Beach" by OceanLab: "We will all be back to play / Winter months will just fade away / Making friends and sleeping in / Sleeping in the sun..."

Raleigh’s return to consciousness is deliciously slow.

He becomes aware of details almost sequentially: the heat that surrounds him and suffuses his entire being, the feeling of slight but constant motion on all sides, the sounds of air moving in time with the movements as warm air flows over the skin of his neck; the slow but synchronized pulses that press against his flesh.  He can feel an arm wrapped around him, a callused palm spread just beneath his sternum. There’s a leg pushed between his own, the short hairs tickling his skin. Raleigh stretches slightly, arching his back, and gets  a disgruntled mumble from behind him that sounds distinctly like soft cursing, the limb wrapped around him tightening as the leg jerks unhappily.

Chuck, then.

Which means the tangle of arms at Raleigh’s front and the slow, deep breaths that brush against his hair are from Herc. The older man doesn’t so much as stir as Chuck squirms while Raleigh continues stretching.

Raleigh can’t help the fond smile that comes to his face at the younger Australian’s antics. Even asleep, the younger pilot is unwilling to budge from what he wants. And, though Chuck would probably sooner die than admit it, what the redhead _clearly_ wants—almost constantly—is to cuddle. Raleigh blames a teenager-hood bereft of loving touches. The blond twists slightly, wriggling an arm free to reach behind him and run a his fingers through the younger ranger’s short, red-brown curls, his smile widening  at the pulse of contentment he feels the action generate through their ghost drift. The feeling pulls a contented hum from his chest as it fills in the gaps, the tears and rips and furrows, that are still there—will always be there—but no longer _ache_ the way they used to. He quests outward within the ghost drift towards the hot, sun-like presence that is Chuck’s mind, the source of the contentment, and gets a loud huff against his neck for his trouble.

“Stop th’t,” Chuck mumbles sleepily, slurring his words slightly. “No pokin’ me ‘less ‘m ‘wake fer it.”

Raleigh chuckles softly, eyes still closed, before another presence in their ghost drift—this one a slow burn, inexorable, implacable, unwavering—sends a soft buzz of annoyance their way.

“Both of y’ shuddup,” Herc grumbles from in front of Raleigh. “Some of us ‘r tryin’a sleep.”

The American doesn’t miss the soft undercurrent of affection that flows from the older man, though, and Raleigh cracks his eyes open, his smile widening impossibly further as he blinks once, then twice in the light slanting through the window of their new room.

Herc’s eyes are open as well, though only barely, the hard, steely gaze accentuating the thin line of his mouth; Raleigh knows it’s mostly for show. After all, he’s in the other man’s head. He playfully lifts a hand and boops Herc on the nose with his middle finger, making the older man’s eyes cross momentarily as he tracks the digit’s progress. The other pilot’s gaze narrows in exasperation, the feeling a chip of ice that slips up Raleigh’s spine, making him shiver lightly in the warm room.

“Watch it, kiddo,” he growls, the sound one that never fails to make something in Raleigh’s belly twist in the most delicious fashion. It doesn’t help that, when Herc catches the thread of arousal that Raleigh knows he’s projecting—he can’t help it; he’s tried—the older man’s exasperation fades almost completely to be replaced by a glowing fondness, and he growls again, this time wordlessly and with the smallest of grins. Herc frees his hand from the knot of limbs and elbows between himself and Raleigh, stretching out to press his palm on Raleigh’s hips, blunt fingertips tracing over the old scars on Raleigh’s left side and then moving to the still-shiny new circuitry patterns on his right, almost hidden by the way he’s lying.

The memories, like always, try to surface.

Gipsy’s arm being ripped away, neural feedback coursing through his body and branding his skin. The only thing that keeps him from passing out from the pain is Yancy’s solid, unbreakable presence.

Knifehead tearing Yancy from the Conn Pod as the older pilot’s fear slithers through Raleigh’s veins.

The _fire_ that  follows and nearly whites out Raleigh’s vision, burning a hole into his mind in the shape of his brother and cauterizing the wound to ensure that it will never fully heal.

His body screaming, his mind _burning_ , as he drags Gipsy back to shore alone, every step like barbed wire being drawn across the flayed remnants of what few pieces of Yancy he still has left. The desire to live, if only because he knows it’s what Yancy would’ve wanted, is the only thing that keeps him from just _stopping_ , from letting the sea swallow him like it had the only thing that had ever really made sense in Raleigh’s life.

Waking in Medical days later, his brother’s last screams of pain all he can hear, the sound repeating itself endlessly in the soundtrack of his mind.

Pleading with desperately with Chuck through whatever connection they have to not do it, don’t press the button, they can get to them, they can make it, they’re coming, just please _hold on_ —

The same fire ripping through his mind again, except this time it’s cold and it _tears_ , gouging out another piece of him with a brutal savagery that—

But then Chuck and Herc are both there, filling in the gaps—the pain—with warmth and light and _love_. Their presences don’t _heal_ the wounds—Raleigh’s almost certain that, no matter how much better he gets, his mind will always be scarred, just like his body—but they make them bearable. They lift him out of the swirl of stale, putrid darkness  and allow him to just _be_ , the memories no longer RABITs that try to drown and consume him, but something more approaching normal that he can push back down into the depths of his subconscious. The other two men remind him that he’s not alone anymore, and that knowledge itself is enough for his peace and stability of mind.

Herc continues trailing his fingers over the scars as if nothing had happened—it’s been an often enough occurrence in the past two months that, by now, Herc and Chuck don’t even have to actively do anything except be there for the blond to reach out and touch mentally—and Raleigh can, faintly, make out words in his mind that are not his own.

‘ _Not from failure, from_ strength _. You survived. You are_ strong _. Don’t forget. Won’t forget._ ’

Behind him, within him, Chuck hums his sleepy agreement, a feeling threading across their ghost drift that reminds Raleigh strongly of that day he’d woken up in the hospital. Or, to be more precise, it reminds him of the pure affection and love and _light_ he’d felt across their ghost drift in the moment it finally returned to them. Raleigh’s not sure which of the Hansens it comes from, though, at the moment, he’s fairly certain it could reasonably be either of them. If there’s one thing he’s discovered about the emotionally-constipated Australians, it’s that, when they do something—when they _feel_ something—they don’t do it halfway.

Raleigh nuzzles forward into the hollow of Herc’s throat, sighing happily, mind alight. The older man simply continues trailing over Raleigh’s body with his hands, occasionally finding a spot that makes the blond either shudder happily or giggle. Chuck, meanwhile, winds his arm tighter around Raleigh’s midsection, using the other pilot as leverage to pull himself flush with Raleigh’s back, forehead pressing into the back of the blond’s neck as his breath tickles the short hairs there. Raleigh can feel his own contentment and mild, background arousal reflected in the other two men, the ghost drift a sluggish, bright bridge between the three of them as they lie together.

Raleigh doesn’t know how long they stay there, the sunlight of a new day streaming through the windows that look out on the harbor, the brightness painting the room with a feeling of _possibility_ as they murmur soundlessly to each other, letting the ghost drift and their bodies’ small movements do the remainder of the talking for them. At some point, the hand that Chuck doesn’t have folded between his front and Raleigh’s back slides lower until his fingers dance over the V of the blond’s hips, idly tracing the lines of muscle and making Raleigh twitch in more ways than one. When those same fingers dip lower, teasing through the dark blond curls at the base of Raleigh’s cock, the older ranger shivers at the feeling, the touch both sexual and yet so innocent, exploratory. Chuck’s mind contains no hints of taking things further: he’s simply enjoying himself and the way he’s making Raleigh _react_ and feel _good_.

It’s a different side of Chuck—of both Hansens, really—and one Raleigh feels privileged to see, let alone experience. He squirms under their combined touches, reveling in the sensations coursing through his body, opening the gates of his mind to project them to the other men.

After some time, Raleigh relaxes completely again, forehead dropping forward again to rest against Herc’s chest, the older man’s palm still cupping his cheek. Behind him, Chuck does the same, nosing at the juncture between Raleigh’s neck and shoulder, fingers splayed once more over the blond’s taut stomach, while Herc contents himself with lifting a hand and running his nails gently over Raleigh’s scalp. The sunlight is more angled now, illuminating only those areas closest to the window.

Their new room is nice— _really_ nice, as it should be, especially considering it was supposed to be the Marshall’s but Stacker had always refused the nicer accommodations—but Raleigh feels a slight pang go through him as his mind wanders to how impermanent this situation is.

He _likes_ staying here with Herc and Chuck. It’s become something of a new home for him. After all, his house— _his and Yancy’s_ a part of his mind whispers ruefully, quietly enough that he’s almost positive the words don’t wander over the ghost drift—had been sold long ago when he and his brother had gone off to the Academy, and while he was constructing the Wall, he typically stayed at whatever prefab shelters the construction companies had erected for their workers on site. He is, for all intents and purposes, homeless. Except he isn’t. Except he has this new room with the Hansens that the three of them have made into their own space: Raleigh’s photos line the walls, surrounding some of Chuck’s old Jaeger team posters (Raleigh hadn’t given the redhead hell when he pulled out the old Gipsy Danger one, no sir, that would have been childish of him), while Herc’s influence is more seen in the spartan cleanliness of the space. He has this new space, and he doesn’t want to give it up.

But, in fewer than four months, the Hong Kong Shatterdome is going to be closed down.

A hand on top of Raleigh’s head stills at almost the exact same moment the one on his stomach curls into a fist.

“Ray,” Chuck murmurs, tone level and, combined with the thread of reproach and comfort Chuck nudges his way, saying more than the redhead ever could in words.

“We’ll figure something out, Raleigh,” Herc adds softly, his presence in the ghost drift like a warm autumn day: colorful and welcoming, but muted, refusing on some basic level to be overwhelming. The older man presses a soft kiss to the top of Raleigh’s head, the hand not occupied with the blond’s hair pressing itself over the back of Chuck’s palm, holding his son’s palm between his own and Raleigh’s skin.

“We’ve got time. All the time in the world.”


End file.
